Presidents’ Alliance urges Congress to pass a legislative solution to protect Dreamers

Letter to Congressional Leadership re: Bipartisan Legislation to Protect Dreamers

February 12, 2018

The Honorable Paul Ryan
Speaker of the House
United States House of Representatives
Room H-305, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Minority Leader
United States House of Representatives
Room H-204, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Room S-230, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Chuck Schumer
Minority Leader
United States Senate
Room S-221, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Speaker Ryan, Leader Pelosi, Leader McConnell and Leader Schumer:

Now that there is a federal budget plan in place that addresses some of our Nation’s most pressing needs, we urge you to come together and complete another piece of urgent, unfinished business: to pass bipartisan legislation that permanently protects Dreamers from deportation and provides them with the ability to continue to work, study and serve in the military, so that they may fulfill their human potential and contribute to our campuses, communities and country.

The delay in addressing this matter has already come at a high human cost. But the ultimate cost, should Congress fail to act, will not just be borne by Dreamers and their families, but by the students who lose a teacher, the patients who lose a doctor, the lab that loses a researcher, the military unit that loses a trained and ready leader, the church that loses a volunteer. Our country and our economy will be poorer for it. We are a great and big enough country to embrace children raised as Americans and to place them on a pathway to citizenship.

We know Dreamers as our students, alumni, neighbors, friends and staff members. We have seen their potential and know their hunger to develop their talents and use them to serve this nation. In recent years, Americans of all backgrounds have come to learn their stories and understand their plight, and they too want you to act. Indeed, a majority of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, support a pathway to citizenship for these young people.

Thus, on behalf of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a nonpartisan alliance of now over 250 college and university presidents and chancellors from across the nation, we urge you to pass bipartisan legislation to solve this problem as soon as possible.